Author and Scriptwriter

'Among the most important writers of contemporary British horror.' -Ramsey Campbell

Friday, 29 January 2016

The Lowdown (Mr and Mrs Edition) Part Two... with Paul Kane

Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan

Paul Kane is the
award-winning, bestselling author and editor of over fifty books –
including the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered together in the sellout Hooded
Man omnibus, revolving around a post-apocalyptic version of Robin Hood), The
Butterfly Man and Other Stories, Hellbound Hearts and The Mammoth
Book of Body Horror. His non-fiction books include The Hellraiser Films
and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark, and his genre journalism
has appeared in the likes of SFX, Rue Morgue and DeathRay.
He has been a Guest at Alt.Fiction five times, was a Guest at the first SFX
Weekender, at Thought Bubble in 2011, Derbyshire Literary Festival and Off the
Shelf in 2012, Monster Mash and Event Horizon in 2013, Edge-Lit in 2014, plus HorrorCon,
HorrorFest and Grimm Up North in 2015, as well as being a panellist at
FantasyCon and the World Fantasy Convention. His work has been optioned and
adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network television, plus
his latest novels are Lunar (set to be turned into a feature film), the
Y.A. story The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane) and the sequel to RED – Blood RED – from SST Publications. He lives in Derbyshire, UK,
with his wife Marie O’Regan (see Monday's Lowdown),
his family and a black cat called Mina. Find out more at his site,
which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine
Harris, Dean Koontz and Guillermo del Toro.

1. Tell us three things about yourself.

1) Incredible as it might seem, especially to
me, I’ve been writing professionally for almost twenty years – there’s a ‘Best
of…’ collection coming out later this year from SST called Shadow Casting to mark the occasion of my being older than I would
like to be.

2) I write film, TV and graphic novel scripts, as well as fiction
and non-fiction.

3) Before I became a writer, I wanted to be either a comic
book artist or a special effects guy. Both seemed more attainable than starship
captain – at least back then.

2. What was the first thing you had
published?

The first things I had published, in a
non-paying market, were reviews in a small press magazine called Drone back in the early ‘90s. Mainly
film and book reviews, but some model reviews, as I was heavily into making
genre models at the time – because of the interest in special effects – and Drone covered a lot of that kind of
stuff. I still have all kinds of oddities in the garage, from a full-sized
Facehugger to a Spider-head from The
Thing. I’m frightened of getting them out, though, in case I scare the cat.
The first fiction story I had published was ‘Facades’ in Planet Prozak a few years later.

3. Which piece of writing are you proudest
of?

Probably a short story called ‘The
Butterfly Man’, which was published in the PS collection of the same name. I
wanted to write something that was a meditation on life, love and everything
in-between, and think I managed to just about pull it off. I remember telling my
better half Marie (O’Regan) the broad strokes of this one in the car on the way
back from the shops before I’d even written a word. She started crying, in a
good way thankfully, so I knew I was probably on to something. It’s one of
those stories I hope I’m remembered for in years to come, and will definitely
be in the ‘Best of…’ this year.

4. …and which makes you cringe?

How long have you got? The ones that used
to make me cringe were the first pieces of prose I had a bash at when I was in
my teens, trying to emulate horror authors like Jim Herbert. There’s a novel –
if you can call it that – called Night
Beast, about a killer alien that lands in a lake, which had Garth Merenghi-style
rangers in choppers with Magnums hunting the thing in the Peak District. I say
they used to make me cringe because now I just find them hilarious; in fact I
get them out every now and again if I want to cheer myself up.

5. What’s a normal writing day like?

I’m sure a lot of writers say this, but I
don’t think there actually is a normal writing day. You can try and plan what
you’re going to do, but other things always crop up, some of which are
infinitely more fun than being shackled to a keyboard all day. For example, I
was recently invited to go and talk about Hellraiser
– one of my passions for anyone who doesn’t know – at the Grimm Up North film
festival, which was a lot of fun. When I’m working on something like a novel,
which I was over last summer, I try keep office hours and average about 3 –
4,000 words a day, so I can usually get a first draft done in about a couple of
months or less. Then comes the hard part of editing and rewriting…

6. Which piece of writing should someone
who’s never read you before pick up first?

Probably the Hooded Man omnibus of all the Arrowhead
novels (published by Abaddon), as it reflects a lot of my interests –
mythology, SF, horror – and I think has some of the best characters I’ve ever
come up with, not to mention some rollocking action scenes. Those stories are
probably what I’m best known for, and definitely changed my life. I’ve just
recently revisited that universe for the e-novella Flaming Arrow, which picks up a few years after Arrowland and catches up with the
characters now they’re a bit older; that will be reprinted in the mass market
paperback The End of the End this
August. In terms of short stories, probably my last collection Monsters (from Alchemy Press), which
spans my career so far. Plus it has a really cool cover by Clive Barker and an
introduction by Nicholas Vince, who played Chatterer Cenobite in Hellraiser and Kinski in Nightbreed; both people who know a
little bit about monsters themselves.

7. What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished writing a short film and
have been doing a lot of promo publicity for Blood RED, my sequel novel to 2008’s sellout novella RED. That’s a horror reworking of Little Red Riding Hood, which comes with
a cover from Dave McKean and introduction by Alison Littlewood – out again
through SST.
Just before Christmas I finished edits on both my new mass market novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hellfrom
Solaris
and the non-fiction book Hellraisers
from Avalard. I also wrote a new novelette called Snow for Stormblade, which is another dark take on a certain
well-known fairy tale – that’ll be out soon in print, e-book and audio. The New
Year sees me hitting the ground running, doing two brand new stories for my
upcoming Nailbiters collection, another
graphic novel, writing a newly commissioned post-apocalyptic novella called The Rot and turning my attention to some
more film work. Plus Marie and I have just taken over as co-chairs of the UK
Chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association, which should keep us pretty busy
this coming year.